Downtown Toronto to rural New Zealand: Culture shock and the truth about this past year
July 2019
In May 2018, my father's circumnavigation had led him to New Zealand, and I decided it was time I came down for another visit. I booked a three-week round trip, and sublet my apartment for the month.
48 hours into my visit, I met my Matt, the person I’d go onto marry. While this was one of the most thrilling experiences I've ever had, it also began the hardest chapter of my life thus far.
To provide perspective, the city of Toronto has a population of three million people, with a surrounding area (called the GTA, where I grew up) of six million. New Zealand as a country has about four million. Total. There is also a 7:1 sheep to human ratio.
So, as you can imagine, leaving my cute little one bedroom apartment at Bathurst and College for the farms and "paddocks" of rural New Zealand was about as different as you can get. My dad had gone to Spain to visit a friend, and I was living on the boat by myself, in winter. It wasn’t ideal. Within a month I had moved in with Matt and was tasked with trying to make a boy's pad feel like somewhere I could call home. I did an exceptional amount of cleaning and my mum sent me down my cherished tapestry from Kensington Market, but it took about six months for me to feel remotely ”at home”.
On top of that, the town we live in has a population of about six thousand. There's a gas station, a corner shop, a couple industrial stores, and a pub. Matt laughed at me when I said I was going to do some writing in a cafe one evening. Everything in town closes by 5:00 pm, of course. I still remember the first few drives I went on with Matt, or "tiki tours" as the kiwis call them, and was most surprised by the concept of driving for an hour and not seeing a single human being. Contrast that to Trinity Bellwoods park on even a slightly sunny day.
Now just a little disclaimer: I need to state that I do adore this country. I am so honoured to have the privilege of living here and learning this new way of life. I have a lot of respect for Jacinda Ardern and the current government. I suppose the biggest challenge here was that I didn’t realise when I left Canada last May, I wouldn't be coming back.
I think people assume that I am exaggerating for the sake of storytelling when I say that I came down here with a backpack. It's true. Imagine packing for three weeks and then cancelling your return flight. Because of the distance, when it became clear that what I had with Matt was more than a three-week fling, it made more sense to acquire my visa from inside New Zealand, instead of spending two grand to fly back and forth.
Without having mastered a trade, my options for work in rural New Zealand were limited. Unable to find anything quite in my field, I began managing a lodge in a beach town 30 minutes from where we live. While I was meeting interesting people, I didn't feel challenged in the right ways and was missing the fast pace of my previous roles in Toronto.
Over time, I began to feel as though the fire inside me was slowly being extinguished. The aspects of life that fuel me: my career, my friends and family, and my busy social schedule were damn near impossible to recreate here. At least in any short amount of time, they were.
I had made friends through work, but they were all on working holiday visas, here to explore the country from top to bottom, and had come to New Zealand with the intention of staying only a little while in each place. While I may make friends quickly, in my new life, they left as quickly as they came, and it broke my heart each time they moved on.
However, when I would turn to social media to catch up with my loved ones back home and attempt to document my new life, my photos would often be of stunning sunsets, incredible beaches, and the vibrant green rolling hills that seem to go on forever. My weekly staff meetings were overlooking the ocean and usually included cake. My life looked picture perfect. Naturally, everyone back home assumed that I was living out a real-life fairytale; that I was happier than ever, when in reality, I had never felt worse.
I didn't know how to articulate that on one hand I'd met this incredible guy, but on the other hand I was miserable, lonely, unfulfilled, and unable to picture what my future would look like. I was struggling to redefine my identity as an expat or "immigrant" without the people who have always been by my side. Instead of being the girl who "knew everyone", I was now just "Matt's girlfriend". How do I explain that the best year of my life was also the worst?
Now don't get me wrong, I love Matt. But a partner is only one piece of the pie for me. When I was living happily in Toronto, I had the career, the friendships, the social events, and the family a short train-ride away. It was the partner that was the missing piece. I didn't have Matt. I didn't let it get me down too often, but there were certain nights I would be walking home from the bar, or sitting in my room after some guy had hurt me, and I would wonder if I would ever find what I have now.
Today, my love life feels complete, but I'm missing all the rest. I guess this is a life lesson that you don't get everything all at once. Hopefully the rest will come. If I can't convince all my friends to move down here with me, I can only hope that I will continue to meet new people who make me feel a little less alone.
I can't forget to mention that as many know, Matt has agreed to start over somewhere new. Somewhere that looks a little bit more like home to me, where I can work again in my field and have the option of getting a cup of tea past 5:00 pm: Wellington! The capital of New Zealand, Wellington is home to government offices, famous - well, New Zealand famous - museums, art galleries, vintage movie theatres, and trails.
So, 14 months later and I'm still here, still standing. Some days I'm not quite sure how, but I do think it's important to stop and appreciate how far I have come. I may have felt incredibly frustrated that there are no taxis or Ubers up here, but I did buy my first car and learn to drive on the left side of the road, navigating windy roads and backwards roundabouts!
I may have set a new record for the most anxiety attacks in a year, but I also learned to navigate Immigration New Zealand and am on my way to becoming a resident by the end of the year! I may have struggled to find things to do here, but I did set a personal best when I ran 11k last September.
I may have hit pause on my career but I did learn how to concrete, water blast, and build our own furniture. Oh, and I did jump out of a plane at 20 000 feet!
Sometimes I ask myself what has gotten me through the past 14 months. In no particular order:
Matt, who supports me through the highs and the lows;
the two weeks my family was here at Christmas;
the two months that Sarah (my best friend) spent here with us;
the five weeks Scotty (my not-so-little brother) came to visit us;
the constant love and wisdom I get from my mum, who has supported my decisions since day one;
the window of time that my dad was here, just 40 minutes away, closer than we have been since 2015;
each of my friends and family who pick up the phone on a weekly - sometimes daily - basis and check in with me;
the many cards, letters, packages, and pieces of home that wonderful humans have sent down;
the most affectionate dog in the world;
the friends I've made here in New Zealand, most of which are now scattered across Europe;
the house I've slowly turned into a home;
and the month of May (2019), where I was able to return to Toronto and surround myself, finally, with the people and places that I miss every single day.
It's taken me a long time to finally sit down and write this, to accept where I am in life. From a literary standpoint, it may need more polishing, but for my own personal development, it has been an important step.
Rather than thinking about everything I've lost or left behind, I need to appreciate everything I've gained; wonderful extended family, some wild memories (can't forget the Blues and Jazz festival of 2018), and a massive amount of personal growth.
And of course, as my time back in Canada in May has shown me, I haven't really "lost" anything. Those that matter will always be there, and Kensington hasn't changed all that much either. I suppose the way I'm learning to look at my new life is that I am privileged to have two countries to call home. And instead of looking back, I need to start looking forward.
Cover photo by Nine Koepfer